U.S. Senator Marco Rubio criticized the media for causing “hysteria” among Americans over the new rise in COVID-19 cases that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said is the pandemic of the unvaccinated.
According to CDC data, on Thursday and Friday of last week combined, there were almost 40,000 new cases reported in Florida, which is almost 32% of all cases that were recorded across the country during the same time.
The number of hospitalizations recorded last week broke last year’s record with 10,207, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Rubio suggested on Twitter that the media should focus on how many people are severely ill, rather than focusing on the number of cases being reported. “We have media hysteria over COVID ‘cases’ because ‘bad news’ sells. But what matters isn’t how many people have COVID, what matters is how many people are seriously ill. The real story here is how for the fully vaccinated the risk of serious illness appears to be near zero,” he wrote.
Although Rubio did not specify what determines a “serious illness,” he did write in a follow-up tweet that expands on his stance regarding the COVID-19 vaccine that reads, “If at this time last year someone had told us there was a medicine that made COVID no worse than the flu we would have been very happy. Well now we do. Use it.”
Rubio, who has gotten the vaccine himself, has previously encouraged other people to get vaccinated but still believes that it is a person’s right to refuse the vaccine if he or she chooses. On CBS This Morning, when asked if he was satisfied with the vaccination numbers in Florida, Rubio responded by saying, “I’m not satisfied with the outcome, but I don’t think it’s the government’s fault. Ultimately, people should get vaccinated … There’s no reason not to be vaccinated. I’m vaccinated. My family’s vaccinated. People shouldn’t listen to the people that tell them not to. All these things out there that are being said are just not accurate.”
However, he defends the right to refuse the vaccine by adding, “At the end of the day, it’s up to people to make that decision. The government, in a free society such as ours, there’s only so much that they can do. They can provide information. We can debunk things that aren’t true. We can provide access. It’s ultimately up to people individually to make that decision.”
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Casey Owens is a contributing writer for The Florida Capital Star. Follow him on Twitter at @cowensreports. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Marco Rubio” by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0.
